Latest / Revisionist History / A Dollop Crossover | Ben Naddaff-Hafrey on Staten Island and the Revolutionary War

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A Dollop Crossover | Ben Naddaff-Hafrey on Staten Island and the Revolutionary War · Revisionist History

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey, it's Malcolm Gladwell. Before we get into this episode,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I wanted to let you know about my new book,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: The American Way of Killing. Stay tuned at the end
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: of the episode to hear a preview and get The
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: audiobooks are sold.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Hey, Revisionist History listeners. This has been Matt of Halfery.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: A little while ago, As part of my Staten Island summer,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I went on a history show called The Dollop. It's
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: hosted by the comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds, who,
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: it turns out, have both done sets on Staten Island
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: that turned out poorly. This episode was a comeback special
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: about an extremely niche topic. When I was reporting the
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Staten Island problem, I spent a day on the island
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: with a Revolutionary War historian named Phil Pappas, learning about
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: how Staten Islanders really did not want the American Revolution
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: to happen. Sadly, that got cut from the show. But
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: the guys at The Dollop did a deep, deep dive
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: on the topic and came up with an even crazier story.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: And that's the episode you're about to hear today. You
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: can listen to more from The Dollop over on their
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: show page. And here's our episode.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: My father's dead. You killed him.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: They think that I'm shiny.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Oh!
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I am a pie man!
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: I'm Pete Rose, and I only go to Gold's Gym,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: this one specifically.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Rumor is that his penis is broken.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: And show him where the taco bar was.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: His brain just fucking exploded.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: River of cheese! You been drinking any gnome juice? No, officer.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: My dad had a fart chair.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Hey, cover me.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You're listening to The Dollop on the All Things Comedy Network.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: This is an American History Podcast where each week I...
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Dave Anthony read a story from American history to a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: guy who grabbed a drink at the wrong time.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: It's spilling.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Gareth Reynolds has no idea what the topic is going
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: to be about. Good Lord.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: But before we jump into the dollop, which we're also
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: calling the revisionist history dollop because we have a guest.
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: We're doing a crossover like when Batman and Robin used
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: to do a Scooby-Doo.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Wait, who's Scooby-Doo?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We're definitely Scooby-Doo.
• 2:36
  Speaker 6: 100%.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Without questions.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: We have Ben Nadaf-Haffrey joining us. And thank you. Thank
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: you for joining us, Ben. This has been like in
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: the works for a minute. I'm honestly surprised this happened.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I'm shocked. I'm shocked that– I'm not only shocked that
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: this happened, but I was shocked in the first place
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: that you guys immediately gravitated towards this story because it
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: is a deep cut.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Well, it is a deep, but I like deep cuts.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: It's also our buddy did it. And, and then Dave
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: was like, this is crazy. So Dave's been working on
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: it in, in some capacity as well. But this is
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: because you did a series on Staten Island.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: And then this was kind of one that we were
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: there was just kind of the leftover stuff.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: And we were like, well, let's do it together. So
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: what is the Staten Island series called and where can
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: people listen to it?
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: So it's called The Staten Island Problem. And you can
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: listen to it on the Revisionist History podcast.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: That's what Colin Jost and Pete Davidson suffered from.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when their ferry boat is, you know, they bought
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: that Staten Island ferry and they've for like a decade
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: tried to figure out what to do with it. And
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: just like a month ago, a state official was like,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I've got a great idea. You should sink it and
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: we can make an artificial coral reef.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: I think there's– it's obviously been a terrible investment, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: there's got to be something about being like officially sinking.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: It must be a tough one.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: But anyway, so the Staten Island problem and– It's about
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York City.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: For those who don't know, Staten Island is one of
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: the five boroughs in New York. And the reason you
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: may not know that, you know, it's Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Manhattan,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Staten Island. Staten Island calls itself the forgotten borough, as
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: in like the unloved borough, the one that no one
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: ever pays attention to. It's true. It's totally true. That's
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: like why I did this story. I was like, they're
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: kind of right. Just want to leave.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: They're being pouty though, right?
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, the chip on the shoulder is like core to
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: the identity. That's just like, you gotta.
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: Should they secede?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, absolutely. When I lived in New York, I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: went there to do stand up once and it was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: like going to another country and they hated you.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: I would arguably say the craziest, like when I was
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: first starting the craziest, uh, set I'd ever gone through
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: was in Staten Island where everyone just yelled at you
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: during your set and every comedian went through it. So
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: you were kind of like, it's not me, but you
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: would just be up there just fighting.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: It was, I was like, what is this?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Was it a grandpa's?
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: I don't remember if it.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Was a grandpa's.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: There was a comedy club called grandpa's.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: It wasn't a comedy club.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: You're like notionally I'm in New York, but this is not. Yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: I was like the train came here, but that's, it's different.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: It didn't work. Like the train got me half the way.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: You can't, you got to take a ship the rest
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: of the way, like a half hour out to sea.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is just never good.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: No, but I think that's where the reason this story
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: that you guys have actually done, and I know very
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: little about ultimately, but it's about how, why I gravitate
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: towards this story is because it shows that Staten Island
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: is like eternally not part of New York City. They're just,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: they are always on the other side. So I'm happy
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: that you guys are doing this.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: When I was going through this, I was like, oh,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it's exactly the same. It's 200 years later and it's
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: exactly the same. 250 years later.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: I don't understand. 200.
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: I will not allow that last celebration for the 250
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: to be real.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: I want to redo.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: I want to do a 255 once we maybe get
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: through some of this, which we won't. Anyway, well, welcome
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: to the listeners from yours. And we encourage our listeners
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: to go check out the– staten island problem and then
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: weigh in and uh now let's do whatever the hell
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: this is.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: 1738 dave yells.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: The day yeah i've heard enough that i know that.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: Okay i don't like the way you put that to
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: be i've heard enough that's i've heard enough.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: That's how a lot of people describe our show i've
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: heard enough.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah i've heard enough.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: I saw one comment on the one I listened to
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: that was like when they get– it's like usually in
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: a dollop episode when they're 25 minutes in and like
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: you have the main character is like four years old
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: and he's lived in three brothels. Like that's par for
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: the course. But when you're like 25 minutes in and
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: he's like middle-aged, you know some crazy stuff is coming.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, that is very true. Yes. Yeah, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: quicker they age, the more you know it's a crazy story.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Like not a lot known about his boyhood.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: You're like, this is going to be bad.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Uh christopher billup he has two p's on the end
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of his name which really throws me off i want
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to go billup it's.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Like verizono with the ends.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: That's right uh was born on staten island new york
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: he would be the oldest of eight alive kids born
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: to thomas and sarah farmer billup now we always say
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: alive kids because they had a lot more like if
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you had if you had eight alive yeah we don't.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: We don't count the dead ones here i don't know
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: about you ben on yours.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: But we i don't know it's the pre-vaccine world there's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: so many that passed you know what i mean it's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: eight there were.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Eight living descendants in this family.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Eight living yeah he had eight that's remarkable he had
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: seven brothers and sisters that's way.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: More affordable on staten island eight that is numbers too
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: that really has to be.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Because you're batting above average you gotta be.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: Putting out 20 to get eight yeah there's like a
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: there's also a robust mosquito population on staten island in
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: that era um You.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: Know, a lot of disease from mosquitoes. So they're really
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: crushing it.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Mosquitoes are really hung in there with their disease.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: They really don't like them. I was driving here and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: there's one in my car. I'm like, what's happening right now?
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: I'm leaving town.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Keep going.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Keep going. Let's go to Tijuana. Get me out of here.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Get me to Staten Island. I gotta go back.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: You live for half a day.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Christopher's dad... Major Thomas Billup was the son
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of Anne Billup, who married a colonel. And Anne was
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the daughter of a Royal Navy officer, another Christopher Billup,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: who was awarded 932 acres of land on the southern
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: tip of Staten Island. And he builds a big stone
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: manor house. The land is named Bentley Manor. So they're
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: loving it. It's pretty sweet. It's a lot of land.
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, 930 acres on Staten Island is two on regular scale.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: One two-bedroom apartment.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: It's a studio with a stove.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: So young Chris is destined to be in the military.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: He's from a military family. And eventually he does and
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: he becomes a colonel, which is what everyone on Staten
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Island eventually starts to call him. So by the 1770s,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: he's known as Colonel.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: By the powers of deduction, you would say there were
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: not a lot of Colonels from Staten Island.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Otherwise.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: Remember, we're the Scooby-Doo part. So I just want to
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: be very clear. We're the Scooby half.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Does that mean I have to, like, growl Batman voiceless?
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: No, you can be what Dave's kid called the Wacky Batman.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be a wacky Batman. I'll be a 1960s, like, kapow,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: bazinga Batman.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So Bentley Manor had been built up over the years,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and now this Christopher Billup owns it. So there's the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: stone house on the water that his grandfather built. There's
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: four more houses that he would rent out. And a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: neighbor remembers him as he's a very tall, slim man.
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Staten Island at this point, mostly farms.
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: If you can believe that.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: I can't.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Everything else is agriculture. There's wheat and orchards.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: What is a staten? Oh, well.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It's a Dutch term.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Is it?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: For what?
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I think so.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, look at you asking questions that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: can't be answered.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: What is a staten?
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: There's a place called the staten on Staten Island that's
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: very famous.
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: Staten.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Oh, interesting. It was probably at the time called... It's
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Richmond for a while, too. Oh.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: There's Richmond Town in this, yeah.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: A weird change.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: Staten Island by Dutch explorers.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: Staten.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Name honored the Staten Generale, which was the parliament of
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: I thought it had something to do with the Seven United.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: You should have known that, yeah. Yeah, I'm... That's his specialty.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: Rikus, Rikus, Ben.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there's wheat, orchards, cattle, salt hay off the marshes,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: oysters and clams.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Big player back then.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Out of the shallows. They'd sell those and sell everything
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: in New York City mostly, but they also would sell
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it to the British.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Have you ever read about the oysters in New York, Ben?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: The whole oyster situation?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: I knew about the oysters on Staten Island, but I
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: didn't know about the rest of New York.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: There is an amazing book, which I wish I knew
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the title of right now, about oysters in New York.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: it's incredible.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: Oh, you also wanted to mention the book that you
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: based a lot of your stuff on quickly, but who.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Is that? Well, so yeah, this, this, all of everything
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: we know about Staten Island and the American revolution comes
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: from this historian named Phil Pappas, who is himself a
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Staten Islander born and bred and wrote this amazing book
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: called that ever loyal Island. And he's condescending. Well, you'll
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: see why when you get further into it. into the
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: story but it's like it's a fantastic book.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: The oysters in the hudson were insane.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Right yeah i mean the we we we americans just
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: lived on oysters for a long time and ended up
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: just decimating yeah oyster.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: It's like everything else that we get where you're like
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: If you just did it a little slower, it could
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: be forever. And we're like, no, we will eat it
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: all and then no one will have anything.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: But I'm hungry now.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: I'm hungry to eat all the oysters now and make money.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really good.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: My only complaint, no indigenous people have died on this venture.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: We did two episodes on it. It's really crazy. Okay,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: so they're selling to New York City. And then in
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the years leading up to the revolution, a lot of
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: what they're producing– is sold to the Royal Navy. A
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: warship anchoring there, that means hundreds of men who need
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: bread and beef and fresh water, and the Navy pays
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: in silver, so it's a good deal.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: And when a king's ship needs water, it fills its
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: casks at a spring on the island's northeast shore, a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: spot that is called the watering place.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Very good title.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: You know what you're getting into.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I thought this was a brothel.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: It's very much like a surfer. Any surf spot is
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: named after what they.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Restaurants.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Big Rock. It's all what you see from the surfboard.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Colonel Billup has been in charge of the Islands Militia
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: now for about three years, which is called Billup's Corps
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of Staten Island Militia. Okay.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Once again, we're just naming things extremely aptly.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Well, it's also how book titles were, you know, when
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: it would just be like, he actually wrote a book
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: about it called The Endless Forests in the Area Where
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: I Lived for Five Years and Eventually Left Because My
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: Wife Had Tuberculosis.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I don't need to read the book now.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, so that's a peacetime appointment. Obviously there's no war
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: when he gets appointed. Now on the Island, there's five churches.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: The biggest is St. Andrews, which is the Angelican church
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: at Richmond town. Nice.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: That's what we're just talking about.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You don't need to yell about it. I'm gonna. Out
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of the, uh, out at New Dorp.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a place called New Dorp.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: Stop.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I don't want to even know where Dorp came from.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Dorp?
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Couldn't that sound more like the Carlos Mencia sound he
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: made when he was.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: Calling, Dorp!
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Dorp! You stub your toe.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Dorp!
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: It was the alt to Homer's Doe. It's either Doe
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: or Dorp.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: What is the alternate universe Simpsons thing? This just triggered
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: some deep Simpsons knowledge. It's like the Shelbyville Simpsons or something, right?
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, right, yeah.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: Oh, no, no.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: When he's replaced by Russians, there's a film version of
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: The Simpsons that they're trying to pass off as the
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: real Simpsons family.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: Oh, I kind of remember that. That just takes me
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: to when the Flanders have a family reunion.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I can't remember.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: There's like the fake Homer goes, duh, oh, or something
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: I know the English Flanders goes.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Great googly moogly moo.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So at a new dorp there is a Moravian church
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and the minister lives beside it with his family his
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: name is Hector Gambold and Gambold writes a lot of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: letters and so that's a lot of those survived and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of what we know that's helpful Yeah,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so write letters, people.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Didn't help Comey, but anyway.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: No.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Comey was like, but my journal. They were like, yeah,
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: get out of here. My diary.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely diary. Unless your name's Fauci, then don't diary.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Don't keep.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: I met Barbara Streisand.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: On the island, there's five. Oh, I already did that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: So the trouble starts, right? Over taxes, the colonies are
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: paying to the crown.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: There's a big shopping boycott, as we'll call it. The
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: British Parliament closed the port of Boston because of the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Boston Tea Party. Continental Congress answers by agreeing that no
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: colony will buy British goods until Parliament backs down. And so,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of course, Richmond County on Staten Island wants nothing to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: do with this. They want... They're not going to change anything.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: They're like, but can't we still buy maybe just a little?
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: It's so nice to sell to the British. That's what happens.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: That's the problem.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: It's a big market, guys.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: Pete Davidson and Colin Jost are like, now's our time.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: Anyone want to buy this?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So Staten Island refuses to join this. And the colonel
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: does that personally. He sits in the New York Assembly
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and votes down every measure that favors the Congress. And
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: when the assembly refused to- You.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Gotta love it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: No.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: No. No.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: No. That one. No.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: No.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's a no.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: When the assembly refuses to send delegates to Philadelphia, somebody
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: proposes going around it and putting the question straight to
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the people of Richmond County. But the colonel goes to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that meeting and beats it there, too, by a large majority.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: So it's clear Staten Island wants nothing to do with
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: any of this business. They just want to be able
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: to sell their stuff.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Yep, they're happy.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And they're happy with the British.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: They're like, this is not so bad.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty good.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I'm making money over here.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: You guys keep doing that. That's helping.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Then in April of 1775, the shooting starts outside Boston
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: at Lexington. And the first thing the colonel does after
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Lexington is to write to the British Army and ask
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: them not to come.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: And he signs a letter to General Gage, who is
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the British Army's commander, requesting that no troops be sent
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: into New York. And his explanation given nine years later
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: said he was, quote, hoping the flame would blow over.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Let's just ride this one out. So good.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Some guys got shot. Some other guys got shot.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I don't see this lasting very long.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: It's going to blow over.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: I don't think this is going to go on for
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: too much longer. If you could give us a week,
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: that would be really helpful.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So he spent a year, in his words, quote, keeping
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the inhabitants of the island quiet till the arrival of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: British troops. Meanwhile, Staten Island will not stop selling to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the British Navy.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, God.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: They're the king's ships, right? And as far as Staten
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Island is concerned, this is the king's island.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: The king would request more oysters. He's gone peckish again.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: What, are you just going to leave all these oysters
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in the water?
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: Secret oyster handoffs.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: There's also like, don't they, somewhere in here, they're also like,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: can't they propose like a truce? They're like, can't we
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: just like make friends with the British again? It might
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: be just a way to work this out.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: We made a side truce with the British. We are
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: an island. I want to remind everyone of that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So, of course, the colonies. are now pissed that Staten
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Island won't join the boycott. So they start another boycott.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: New Jersey stops buying Staten Island's produce until the island
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: appoints an enforcement committee. So the island... appoints an enforcement committee,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: but then just ignores it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: This committee, when I went around the island with Phil,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: the guy who wrote the book with all this, he
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: took me on a tour of all these sites. It
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: was amazing. Every single one of them is next to
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: a no-fault divorce lawsuit clinic.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: It's final form. We went to the place where this
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: committee met. which is still preserved. And I was like,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: what did they do here? And he's like, you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: just kind of, he's kind of like threw a ball
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: against the wall, sort of like, just like, it was
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: just kind of like, like met to meet. They were
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: just sort of like, yeah, we're not going to look
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: into that report of disloyalty.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: So just pure.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Just purely just like, yeah, we're working on it.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Most of our L.A. government committees.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: I was going to.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: Say, it reminds you very much of, like, the parliamentarian
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: role or something like that, where.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: You're like, here's what I think. And everyone's like, cool,
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: go fuck yourself.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Here's the point.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: It's just like letting it die in committee.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's very interesting. Is this the first let it
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: die in committee?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, man. Aw. I love that it's just all under
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: the framework of let it blow over.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Let it blow over.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: Let's just let this cool down.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Two, three weeks. Two, probably two, maybe three. It's called
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: an excursion.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: So they're ignoring it. They're just trading with the crown still.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And in February 1776, the Continental Congress writes the county
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: into its minutes for, quote, Amnesty and opposition to the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: system and measures adopted for preserving the liberties of America.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: That's not good. You don't want to be written in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: No, it's pretty targeted, honestly.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, traitors.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. So they put us in the minutes.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Always bad news.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Oh, boy.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: Never great, but we are officially in the minutes.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: All right. I can still sell oysters, though, right?
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, but we're on notice. I mean, we're
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: in the minutes, and that's never good.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So we got to get these oysters going quick.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: It's not. I think you're taking away different.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Get them out the door.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: It's not. Again, I'm sort of saying we're in a
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: dark spot. But yeah, let's sell them.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get the oysters out there. At this point, the rebels,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: as we'll call the us, the Americans.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: The mainlanders. Yeah.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: The rebels hold New York City. So that April, Continental
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: soldiers take up posts at the watering place, standing with
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: rifles between the Royal Navy and the island's drinking water.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: That's got to– I mean you don't want to parch
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: the Royal Navy.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: You don't want them parched.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: You can't even get to the no-fault divorce place anymore.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: No.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Well, we're going to have to behead her.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: But what the islanders do is just row out to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the warships to do business with them anyway.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: When you watch that, you're just like, what the hell.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Are they doing?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: It's just like a tiny sailboat inching along the horizon.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Loaded up with a cartoon level of oysters. They're going
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: to go bad. They're fucking eating the oysters. Are they shucking?
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: What?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: By June, Washington, that's George, Washington is demanding an investigation
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: into reports that his own riflemen are taking bribes to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: row the Islanders out. I just.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: This is actually the first fairy.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: I can't. Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I've often...
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I would say.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: Ben, the thing I've learned on this show more than anything,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: which is why we say that history repeats itself, or
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: at least rhymes. I can never get over that it
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: always has existed.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: That it's just like.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: It's just always been thus. Rhymes find a way, you know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: no matter what.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, always.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: It's just so funny.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: You guys are like, you're going to give me $ 10? Okay,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I'll roll you out there.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I have no principles.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: It's like our new country sounds nice, but I mean, really.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: But also, my country sounds really good, too. That'd be great.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So Washington is pissed. He's just across the water in
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: New York, and he writes that the people of Staten Island, quote,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: after the fairest professions have shown themselves our inveterate enemies.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Now this is, yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: That's bad.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: It's in the minutes again.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, is that bad when George Washington calls your island
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: an enemy?
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Rowing out oysters.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Man, we've really put our chips down now, guys.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Look, are we in or are we out, guys?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: How far do we want to take this shit?
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I am amazed that Staten Island ever became part of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: New York City.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: It is crazy.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: It is geologically a part of New Jersey. It's like
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: spiritually and geologically, it is New Jersey.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: It's much closer.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: It's way closer to New Jersey.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: I understand fighting that, though. I understand fighting that.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: There's an annexation movement. Oh, to join New Jersey? In 2025,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I think it's still afoot, maybe. The Republicans in New
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Jersey are like, it would be helpful to have that
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: island here.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I bet it would. At some point, they'll blow up
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the Verrazano Bridge.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: That was floated during the secession movement. They were like,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: when this happens, we'll blow up the Verrazano.
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: It's kind of awesome. In 2025, to be like, we
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: would like it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Let's blow it up.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Is that crazy?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: On July 3rd, 9,000 British soldiers begin landing on Staten Island.
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Led by General William Howe, commander of the British Army
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in America. On July 4th, 1776. Now, that's a big day.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Is it?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: You know what happened then?
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Oh, that was when we wrote the song that I
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: got to stand for.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: That's right. In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress declared the colonies independent.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And on July 6, 1776, in Richmond Town, Staten Island,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: 500 men gather in the road. Richmond Town is right
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the island. There's a courthouse, two churches,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a tavern, a few dozen houses, so not a big place.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: A divorce.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Divorce.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: That was at-fault divorce.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Governor William Tryon watches them. Tryon is the royal governor
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of New York, and he has been running the king's government,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: off the deck of a ship in the harbor for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a better part of a year because the rebels hold
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the city.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: He's trying his best.
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he is.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And next to him there is General Howe. In front
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of them, the 500 Staten Island farmers are sworn into
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the service of the king. They are from Billups Island Militia.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: This feels traitorous.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Very much so.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, but there are still a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: lot of loyalists around.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: There always are.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: But this is just a giant group of them in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: one place. But there's a ton of loyalists helping the British.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: In New York at large, but Staten Island is remarkably so.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: Remarkably.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Honey, I think we're Britain again.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure. They're taking some kind of oath out there.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: My favorite thing that Phil told me is... that the
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Islanders burn the Patriot leaders in effigy after word of
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence comes out. And also that there's
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: like all of these letters from the British soldiers when
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: they arrived there, where they're writing home and they're like,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: this Island is amazing. And they're greeting us as like
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: saviors from the rebel mob. And it's like, they can't
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: get over how happy they are that we're here. They're like,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: this is awesome.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: They got effigies of their government. This is a real vibe.
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: This is awesome.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: They really like us.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: This is really going good. Babe, I'm famous here.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So the 500 men are out of a total population
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of 2,847, and that includes children and slaves.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: Well, if memory serves, they're not considered people.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, correct. So that's a pretty big chunk of the population.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good hunk.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: For the colonel and his men, a job very easy
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: at first. They watch 15 miles of shoreline facing New Jersey.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: You got to keep an eye on New Jersey.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: It's still the same.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: It's still the same. They arm and assemble every time
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: an alarm goes up with the colonel at the front.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: They dig dirt walls into the hills for the British
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: to put cannons behind.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They got the good job.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: They are like, is it an island or a pirate
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: ship now? It's taking on that vibe.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Column A, column B.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Like, if you're watching that, be like, Jesus Christ,
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: they're putting cannons in the dirt.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: There's the Scotland Crossbones flag.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Look at that.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: How did they get parents?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: They round up several hundred of their neighbors to drive
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: wagons and haul artillery. The island's moving.
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: There's a sail moving the goddamn island.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: It's getting farther from New Jersey.
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: I think they're going to Britain.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: They haul artillery for the British Army and the horses
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and wagons go with them. They find the army. It's foraging.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It's firewood. So they're doing everything. They're the suppliers of
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the British Army.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So the colonel's mansion sits at the southern tip of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the island right on the water facing.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: That says a lot.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Facing Perth Amboy. The.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: The colonel's mansion. Really does sort of justify a lot
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: of this if.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: You think about it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Back then all colonels had mansions. Yeah, that's cool. So
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: they're right across this narrow channel from New Jersey. You
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: can row across in a few minutes.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And New Jersey is rebel ground. So the colonel's house
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: is visible from New Jersey. As is the colonel when
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: he just stands outside. Like, you can see him.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: It's like how Sarah Palin describes Russia.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: I can see Russia from my house. I can see
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: New Jersey from my house.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: But to be able to see him like, what is
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: he doing? He's in a robe. He's having some hot beverage.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: He's really stretching.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's waving.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: He's enjoying himself.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Years from now, we'll call it yoga.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: He's counting gold again.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Hey, man.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: Hey, man.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Across the water in New Jersey is a rebel named
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Nathaniel Fitz Randolph. Everyone calls him Captain. I'm going to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: call him Fitz.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: He's about 30 years old. He spends the war rowing
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: over to Staten Island in the dark. And he does
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it often enough that papers on both sides are writing
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: about how he's famous to the rebels and infamous to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the loyalists. Everyone knows who this guy is.
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: We have like a rowing Batman?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, a rowing Batman.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: It was a slow news.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Nothing big was happening in world historic events.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Who is Roman?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: But even the people who hated him conceded that he
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: was decent to the men he captured and did not
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: let his people rob houses.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Sorry, who is he capturing?
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I missed that. So he is... Rebel American going
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: over and grabbing whatever, a soldier or whatever, or an
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: important person from Staten Island.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: Okay, so he's anti-Staten Island, obviously.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: He's anti-British, and therefore anti-Staten Island.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, because Staten Island's part of Britain.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: He rows over and he does a comedy set.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: He comes back. They boo him.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: That did not go well.
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: So he's rowing over there, and he's grabbing someone of note.
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: And then he's bringing them back to the mainland and
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: people are like, oh, it's good.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: And they're like, what the hell are you doing? He's like,
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: it's a vibe. It's popping.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: This is how bad comedy is in Staten Island. David
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Tell went before me and he got off stage and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, God, get me out of here.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I want to hear more about these Staten Island sets
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: you guys did I didn't even realize there was a
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: comedy circuit that.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Went through there I think I did stand up on
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: the ferry to Staten Island and.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: It was a death sentence.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: They're just slamming on the accelerator it was the first
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: trip that.
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: Took 10 minutes that's a lot of smoke you're really.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Cooking That was, oh God, I know who books that gig.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Or did.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: The guy who booked it for me was a guy
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: named Pudge, I believe.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, that's different.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was horrible.
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: I bombed and then could hear people talking about how
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: I bombed. I literally at one point said to someone,
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: I go, I can hear you.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: She was like, oh, sorry. I was like, yeah, it's okay,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: but keep your voice down.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Grandpa was in New Dorp. Grandpa's Comedy Club.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And Grandpa was Al Lewis from the Munsters. That's who
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: owned it. That's why it was called Grandpa's.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: Dave's 80.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Dave fought for the British. I did.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: A little bit. I still am.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: This is going to happen. Dave took an oath after
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: his set.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Should we reconsider? 250 years, it's been long enough.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: It's not a bad idea. The rogue guy grabs him.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: You're going back to the mainland.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So the colonel puts a 100-pound bounty on Fitz's head. Okay.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: So then Fitz, in response, put a 100-pound bounty on
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the colonel's head.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: He's not allowed to do that.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: And he one-ups it and said he was going to
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: have to go get the colonel himself.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: So I guess he gets his own bounty.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Do you pay yourself for taxes?
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Self-dealing. That doesn't happen until 250 years later in American history.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: You've got to be president to do that kind of thing.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Insider rowing.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Uh, uh, he then, uh, gets a tip that the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Colonel will be attending a ball on Staten Island.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Several.
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: Who's the tip from? Uh, this guy keeps looking over
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: there and he can see everything.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: With bald eyes. He could just, how do I know?
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: Uh, cause there's actually a ball going on right now
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: and the Colonel's at it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Uh, so it's several miles inland from his estate. So,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: so Fitz heads to Staten Island. And he goes to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: the house where the ball is happening.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: This guy's wife, by the way, definitely was like, he's cheating.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: He's 100%. Oh, you're going to Staten Island again? You
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: can just tell me if it. Okay.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: What's her name?
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to Staten Island again to try to get
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: the key.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh. And he, so he goes to the ball. He
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: peeks inside so he can get a look at the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: colonel and see what he's wearing, worried that he might
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: grab the wrong guy in the dark. So he wants
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to see.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Poorly wet ball.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: What a setup. I'm going to have to go by feels.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Should we immediately option this to be a movie.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: A major motion picture?
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: This is like a Marvel plot, Roman.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: So Fitz ran up. He's a wanted rebel. He has
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a price on his head, 100 bucks or pounds. And
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: he goes into a ball of a room full of
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: loyalists on an island held by the British Army.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Did he dress up?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how he pulled it off, but some
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: people did recognize him, acquaintances, but they didn't say anything.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: He must have been playing the part a little bit.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I don't imagine he's just winking at a lot of people.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: How good are the British, huh? Look at all these oysters.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: This is awesome. This is living. This is great, huh?
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: I hope the mainland rower never comes this way. Colonel,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: nice outfit.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Wait, how do we know that some people recognize him?
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: It's like after the fact. Oh, yeah, I saw that guy.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I knew who that was. You don't get invited back.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: It's got to be in the letters. Yeah. I don't
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: know how else you'd know.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: That's all we got. That is a weird thing to
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: put in your letter, though. Some people knew him. Others didn't.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Definitely people wrote about it years later, so maybe that's why.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: The next morning, the colonel is riding home from the ball.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: He's tired.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: He's half asleep.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: So he did an all-nighter at the ball.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: He's probably hungover.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: He did an all-nighter at the ball?
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And when Fitz steps into the road, right in front
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: of him and seizes him. And the details have been
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: lost to history. But for some reason, by July 27th,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: he's back on Staten Island. The colonel?
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: What? They caught him. He caught him, which we tried
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to do for a while. And then all of a sudden,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: he's free. And we don't know why.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: What is the time difference between when he caught.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Him to when he was back on the island on
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the 27th?
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: The colonel never wrote an extremely self-aggrandizing book about all this.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: He just– He tweeted a bit.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: He assumed history would.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: No, he didn't.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: He assumed that history books would be like.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: And he never anticipated this.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: No, he never was like, this won't work?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: He was probably exchanged because he was kidnapped for the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: sole purpose of trading in a prisoner exchange.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: So he was probably traded.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: But this is not close to– I would hold on
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: to that one.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: This is not close to over. In February of 1779,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a raiding party from Staten Island comes for Fitz in Jersey.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: At 3 o'clock in the morning, a party of loyalist
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: troops cross from the island. They land. They walk into town.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Nobody sees them because it's 3 a.m. Nobody's up. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: they go straight to the house where Fitz lives.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: This is going to be very validating for the cheating thing, though,
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: for him. He'll be like, see?
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: I've been robbed. They're coming to get me.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to the raiding party, a rebel scout from a
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: nearby post has stopped to spend the night at the house. Okay.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: So there are 12 rebel soldiers inside with fits.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: Tough.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: That is brutal. It's not what it looks like. No, no. Yeah,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: he's like Jason boarding the room. He's like, there's only candles.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: So the sentry does not see the loyalists until they
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: have nearly surrounded the building.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: And then he fires a musket once and runs away.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Wait, who does Fitz?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: No, the sentry.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Oh, the guard. Oh, that guy. I love that guy.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: That's me. That's what I'm doing. I'm shooting it once
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and I'm taking off.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: Well, to be fair, I mean, he's like, it's going
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: to take 20 to reload.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: Words out. I'm going to get a coffee.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: So when the gun goes off, the Loyalists storm the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: house and they just take Fitz and the other 12
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: guys easily with that incident. They're just like, ah. They're
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: probably all laying on the floor asleep.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: On the way out, they steal the buckles of the
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: shoes of the women in the house.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: Smart.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: You got to get your stuff.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: That's just economics.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: I'm like, how is everyone arranged? There's like one room
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: with like... 12 guys on the floor and then there's
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: like bedrooms with the women of the house.
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: When I picture these times, I always just imagine the
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: Three Stooges.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: Sleeping caps. One of them's like.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, there's definitely a couple. If there's a bed, there's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: definitely three or four soldiers.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: They do the 69 sleep.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: When up until.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know when the fire departments in the late 1800s,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it was just two, always two dudes in a bed.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: That's just the way it was.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Which is what I say.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: We should do it in fast motion. Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Um, so, uh, the, he's put in a provost prison
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in New York and then the British put him in irons.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: Oh dear.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Now the rebels keep coming for the Colonel. And in March, uh,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the New York Gazette reports that two or three different
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: parties have lately been at his house, quote, in order
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to captivate him once more with a view to get
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: him for an exchange. So they're trying to get him
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: to swap for Fitz.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: They just think he's valuable. They're not like, this guy
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: is quarterbacking the whole thing. They don't think he's like
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: the linchpin of the British effort. They just think they'll
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: do anything to get him back.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: Why don't they take him? Why don't they.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: The colonel?
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: They can't. They just haven't been able to steal him.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: It's hard to grab a guy.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Especially if you grabbed him once.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to grab him. He's right
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: there in front of his house! I could go get him.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: How can we not get this guy? He's doing yoga
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: every morning at 9am!
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: We can see him!
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: So, they do a couple of raids, but they Both fail,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: but then a third on June 23rd, 1779 does not.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: As previously mentioned, the colonel's house can be seen across
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the water, so the rebels station men in the steeple
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of the town church and give them orders to watch
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: for the colonel to come home.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Is this a Trojan church?
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: They're literally like, you guys, I got a great plan.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Hear me out.
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: How did this take years?
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: We watch his house.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: Huh?
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: So someone on the mainland invented hiding. And this is
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: going to be huge. This is a huge technology, a
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: huge breakthrough. What this is is not revealing where you.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Are right away.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: It works better in summer when there are leaves. You
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: guys remember surprise parties? It's that but for kidnapping, okay?
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: This is going to change all war.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: This is big. Peter Thiel has the copyright.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Uh, so he comes home, the rebels head across. So
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: they wait for him. It's not like they're waiting in
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Staten Island hiding there. They're still across in Jersey, just
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: watching the house. That's the rebels.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: How did nobody, how was nobody like, we could do
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: this over there.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Also, like, to be visible from New Jersey, you have
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: to be at, like, the most extreme, like, outer edge
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: of Staten Island. Like, he must have been the farthest
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: south point of New York.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I believe it is.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: I believe it's right there. He is taunting at this point.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: You really, I mean, obviously, if there's only, like, a
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: little bit you can see, and you're like, I choose
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: to live there.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: You would think he would just be going out, dropping
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: his pants and slapping.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: His butt cheeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's spreading it.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: He's doing the spread thing again. There he goes.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: He's spreading it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: So they head across in a boat in silence, muffling
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the sound of the oars, as you do.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: They land. It's probably quite ineffective, but you maybe just
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: have to lay it flat.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: It's really taken a long time.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: To get there. They land. They walk up to the house.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: We're back on the mainland.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: In a single file, they walk up to the house.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: They give the countersign and go inside without anybody raising
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the alarm, and the colonel's in bed.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: He's sleeping.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: So they just grab him. And when they're taking him
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: out of the home, he asks for time to grab
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: his hat.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, look.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: It was really different back then.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: There are rules of engagement, and there are war crimes,
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: and obviously you've got to let the guy get his hat.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: We do. There's a lot of hat stuff on the island.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Hat fetching.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: Well, we've gone through a lot of the hat respect thing.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Like if someone is in disarray, the papers are always like,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: he was without a hat. Like that's to describe.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: How messed up things were.
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: No, if you think taking your hat off for the
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: national anthem is a pain in the ass, you have
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: no idea how.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: Lucky you are.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: They don't allow him to grab his hat. What?
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: The actual fuck?
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: Oh man, things have changed.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: Well, that's not good.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that is just, I mean, that is not gentlemanly.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: Death.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Death.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: His own guard is posted a short distance away but
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: never noticed a thing. They got comfy. One rebel goes
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: into the stable and takes the colonel's horse, beautiful animal,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: and takes it down to the water. But the horse,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: because he's a jerk, will not get in the boat.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: So the man shoots the horse.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Jesus.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: I don't know why. I don't think we need that detail.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: What else are you going to do with the horse?
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, look.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: If it's not going to get in the boat, what
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: other options are there?
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: So I just killed it. What?
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Just let the thing go. It's a nice horse. Yeah,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I should have.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: I should have. What are you doing? It's all happening
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: so fast.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's so many moving pieces.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It's not happening fast. This is the slowest thing ever.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: I know. Hiding had kind of turned my mind around.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: And I did stomach, so it's a slow one. Why
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: would you shoot him in the stomach? We walked through
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: a lot of versions of this. We never talked about
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: that horse.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Well, you're not supposed to take a horse.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: What is with a horse not getting on a boat?
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Doesn't it understand?
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Who thinks a horse will get on a rowboat?
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: I completely agree.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Completely agree. Can you do stealth mode rowing when you
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: have a horse passenger?
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Trying to get a horse.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: The horses are quiet, but the neighing is very loud.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Trying to get a horse on a rowboat. It's making
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: it harder to row.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Horse was definitely behaving rationally. A, you don't need me. B,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: absolutely not.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to go.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: No. No.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: So the gunshot alerts the British that something's going on,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: but by the time they.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: The idea that you could have just left the horse- Yeah.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Not only for ethical reasons, but to seek off better.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I shot the horse. The British know. I buckled.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: He looked mean. He looked real mean.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: You're going to be weird. What am I going to do?
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: I buckled like a lady's shoe out there. I shot
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: the horse twice.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: But it's too late because Jersey's so close that by
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the time the British- Organize.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: And get down there Alright we're ready They're back on the.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Mainland Yeah they're in Jersey already So Colonel's now a
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: prisoner But it's not so bad Basically he promises the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Continental Army He will not escape And will not take
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: up arms In exchange They let him do his thing
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey So he's basically just cruising around in
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Jersey now And he promises not to do anything bad
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That's the prisoner situation.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: I don't understand That's how it works with officers It's
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: a gentlemanly agreement.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: But then why not let him take his hat?
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Exactly where I was going.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Well, here we go.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Exactly where I was going.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: He's going to hold a grudge, isn't he? As you should.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Just walking around all that time.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, he can see it from where he's being.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: He can see it from where he's... It's right there.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Right there on the hat rack.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: It's right there. I can grab it.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Right next to the yoga mat.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: So as long as he keeps his word, he stays
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: out of a cell, right? So for four months, that is...
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: colonel christopher billups sentence okay exile in new jersey yeah
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: yeah you see yeah.
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: May i go into jail now uh but then in
• 47:39
  Speaker 7: october new york state blows that agreement up the legislature
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: convicts him of loyalty to the king yeah We knew this.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: We all knew this.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We knew. What are we doing? We knew that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: The four months is the issue.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: He's in the legislature being like, we should all. Yeah.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: And you are sentenced to no hat. Well, guys.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Guys.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: So the colonel is banished and everything he owns is
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: taken by the state.
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: You're going to Staten Island.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: So they take his 1078 acres. The stone house his
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: grandfather built, the dead horse they take, they take everything.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: The hat.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Jesus.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: In New York, the British are holding.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Put it on in front of him. No!
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: In New York, the British are holding two American prisoners
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: in irons. One is Nathaniel Fitz Randolph. So New Jersey
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: decides to answer that by doing the same thing to
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a loyalist, and that's Colonel Billup. Okay.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: So.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: The governor of New Jersey wrote a letter saying the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: state had no personal resentment against the colonel. Quote, it
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: is his particular misfortune to be in our position at
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: this melancholy juncture.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Hate to do it.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: We got to put this guy in prison.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: The amount of things that were emotionally written back then
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: and the amount of things that weren't.
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: And this is one where he's like, it's melancholy. We're down.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I'm really sad I got to put this guy in
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: a prison.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: It's tough. And what he was just like popping around
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: New Jersey. And then they were like, things have changed.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Such that now you must be in manacles.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: That was tough, but it is where he wrote Borden
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: to run.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: So on November 6th, the colonel is actually sent to prison.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: There are two letters that are sent with him. The
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: first is for the jailer. Quote, you are hereby commanded
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: to receive into your custody the body of Colonel Christopher Billup,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: prisoner of war, herewith delivered to you and having put
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: irons on his hands and feet. you are to chain
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: him down to the floor in a close room in
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the said jail, and there so detain him, giving him
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: bread and water only for food.
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: Comma with melancholy.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: That feels very standard as far as.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Doesn't it?
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: They're like, okay, yeah, so he's a prisoner. Got it.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: It's like the hiding thing. They're like, we got to
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: really spell this one out.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Don't get him wet. Don't feed him after midnight.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Comma New Jersey, comma Earth.
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: The second letter is for the colonel.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: By the way, bread and water, you give me that
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: for three days, I'm not upset.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: That sounds pretty good.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was longer than three days. Yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: No, eventually I'd be like, can I get some butter?
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: But for the first few days, I'm like, I'm carving
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: and loving it.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: So the other letters to the colonel, the official who
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: signed the first one says he is sorry. He writes, quote,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to be under the disagreeable necessity of treating him this way.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: But retaliation is directed, and the colonel can end it
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: any time he likes by writing to New York and
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: arranging better treatment for the two American prisoners. So they're
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: saying they just want Fitz and the other guy out
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: of irons.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: Right. And he can do that.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, yeah, how about you get involved?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Wow. We can unmanacle the right hand or the left
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: if you're a lefty.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: That is such a strange... situation.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: To be in so he is chained to a jail
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: floor eating bread and water in order to improve the
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: living conditions of the guy who kidnapped him in the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: first place so weeks go by and a message comes
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to the colonel from George Washington George tells him to
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: resign his command of the militia and he can go
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: home nobody will touch you or your property during the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: war or after it so that's a pretty good.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: Deal that is the perfect deal Take it. Yeah.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: He says no. He likes being in charge of the militia.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: Men have never been sane.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: He's like the king.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: Rather than go to therapy. Yes.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: This is just like, dude, look, just say you miss
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: your dad.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: No.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: No.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Chain me tighter. He says no.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Psychotic.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: But regardless, in December, the two sides work out a trade,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and the colonel gets to go home on the 26th.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: 19 days later, the water freezes. Now, the winter of
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: 1779 into 1780 was the hardest of the century. Water
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: rays around New York froze solid enough to carry infantry, artillery,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: and cavalry across the.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: Roman was like, this is tough.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Just on foot.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: I've been made redundant.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: So... On the night of January 14th 1780 Washington They.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: Thought everyone was Jesus And now they're.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Jesus So on the night of January 14th 1780 Washington
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: sent 2,500 men Across the ice Into Staten Island On
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: 300 sleds Borrowed from New Jersey farmers Whee Whee This
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: is fun Huh? Yay The whole British force On the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: island Was 1,800 men So not enough to.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah So Washington's done Fucking around.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah So the British army asked the colonel to call
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: out his militia. In town, the militia is mostly, up
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: until now, they've been mostly just doing the grunt work, right?
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Building stuff and bringing the supplies. Digging. Yeah, digging.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Mainly digging.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: A lot of holes.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: What are we digging for? Not sure. Keep going.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: So combat like this is something new. So the colonel
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: goes to his militia, and he asks them to come
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: into the fort at Richmond, and then he begs them.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: He tells them what the Americans will do to this
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: island if they take it.
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: The Americans.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Hang some of them, right? Uh-huh. And ruin the rest.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Sure. Hang some. Do a set. Burn some. Another set.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: May I be hanged?
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: And then he walks into the garrison like, let's go.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: And then nobody follows. Not one man would join the garrison.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: They then go to the public houses instead to drink
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and hear the news, or they just went home to
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: see about their cattle or their land. And these are
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: not secret rebels. They were men the American government had marked,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: many of them refugees out of New Jersey. Refugees from
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: New Jersey.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: That is just remarkable. Some New Jersey refugees.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: That's what they call them in New York City.
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: We've been through so much.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Aren't you just doing this to make money on oysters?
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: Our home is gone. It's there.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: So some of them have every reason to expect to
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: be hanged if the Americans win and lose everything they had, right?
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: But they're still not going to step up and fight.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: The truth is the British had overstayed their welcome and
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: then abused the island and its people badly.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: So a man named Blake interviewed years later said, quote,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the soldiers in general behaved at first very well, paying
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: for everything that they took. But when they came back
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: from Jersey, they stole everything they could lay their hands on.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: They started with fences.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Where they started with stealing fences?
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: That's right. What are you going to take?
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: They fenced fences? Wow.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: You guys are being too literal.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Now this is how you fence, right?
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: No.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: If we put this up on the battlefield, they'll never
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: get us.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: Look at all these posts. Idiots.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Fences are very important for a farm community Like Staten
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Island They keep the livestock from eating the crops But
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: the British soldiers needed firewood So we just used the fences.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: My cow's over there.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: It's chaos Oh my god So yeah we got all
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: this wood for our fences And we're quite cold.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: It's impossible man.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Local Isaac Simonson quote, the fences were all destroyed, not
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: a rail being left in three months. At that time,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: things were very cheap. After the British came, prices more
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: than doubled.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: Can I just say, in the eternal Staten Island-ness of
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: this story, this is like 18th century NIMBYism. Literally not
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: in my back. You took away... What demarcated my backyard.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: That was– the taxes also.
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: You think NIMBY is bad now. Yeah.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I mean the British were– so the thing my mind
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: always goes back to is when they took Philadelphia, they
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: just took over houses and instead of using an outhouse,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: they would just– they just cut holes in the floor.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: And would just use that as their toilets.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: So they're not great.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Not good guests.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: That's tough. There's an outhouse. There's also an inhouse.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: Christ.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And that's how bathrooms are invented.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: We call it the loo.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. By the way, the pitch was good. The pitch eventually. Directionally, yes.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Eventually, we got there.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: There's nothing worse than the long hike.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Dad's pooping. He's taking that long walk of shame.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: The first time the army went to New Jersey, a
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: proclamation went out.
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: Or if there was no toilet paper in the outhouse,
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: that weird walk back to the main house.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: That is a rough one.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: Dad, were you shot?
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: No.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: We're out of TP.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: They just use their jacket and throw it away behind.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: It's tough. It's a good conversation, though. The first time
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the army went to New Jersey, a proclamation went out
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: telling everyone to put their fences back up.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: What? We found the issue that really gets them going.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: It's just like how we get an Amber Alert. I've
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: got a defense alert.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Then the army came home and destroyed the fences again.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: Damn it.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: What did the British use for firewood once they used
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: up all the fences, you ask? Well, the churches, of course.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: They're like literally the stuff that's most important. They're like,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: let's do that first.
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: What about the trees? Is there a church here?
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: There was a reformed Dutch church at Richmond Town. A
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: frame building finished right about when the war started. A
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: minister named Van Pelt, quote, the British used it gradually
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: up for firewoods.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: They just used up the whole church.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Well, now take the priest.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: A Presbyterian meeting house became a hospital and was then destroyed.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: This might be how they started burning people at the stake.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Seriously.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: We need more firewood. What about that lady?
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: Can't use a good steak for that.
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: All right, not the steak. We'll burn them on her.
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: The two women, tape them together.
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: Dolores, stand as long as you can.
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: You've had tape this whole time?
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah!
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: You guys don't have tape?
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: And yoga?
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys don't have tape and yoga?
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: The Dutch church at Port Richmond had a balcony, a
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: steeple with a bell on it, and shingles from the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: ground up.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: Those are gone. Good night.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Soldiers lived in it until eventually it blew over in
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: a storm. No one is inside, but it blew over.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: At New Dorp, which is a name I'll never get
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: over and no one should.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: And when it blew over, they all said, Dorp! A
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: chorus of voices rose up.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Oh, Dorp!
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Soldiers set fire to Gamble's Moravian Church, then came into
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the parsonage one evening, frightening his family, destroying their furniture,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and and carried off the congregation's records, probably to burn.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Gamble wrote that a complaint by civilians to British officers
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: commonly makes bad worse. One Islander said he obeyed the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: two officers quartered in his house without ever objecting because
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: there was no use in it. Quote, if I'd done so,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: we should have been requited with a curse and a
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: blow of their swords.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: Hmm.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Awkward.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: It's just amazing that they're treating the people that are
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: helping them like this.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right. And that the people are taking it like, well, okay.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: So civil government is- There's an outhouse, guys.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: No.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: No.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Civil government has stopped existing at this point. The courts
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: were closed. The courthouse was burned. Jesus.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: Can we get that gavel?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: And yeah, these are their allies. So by this point,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the militia members aren't really feeling particularly inclined to lay
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: down their lives for the crown.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: You guys don't seem to have that... You're not excited anymore.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: Am I crazy? What's going on?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: So when the American rebels arrive, nobody is there to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: stop them. But the garrison held. The British spies had
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: warned them Americans were coming and they were ready. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: the soldiers stood on a frozen island... in a blizzard
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: for a day and a half and went home without incident.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: But after the army came, hundreds of American civilians with sleds.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: They were dead set on looting the hell out of
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Staten Island. This is how it happens.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: Stop saying we.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Not an invading army, but people like getting stuff. They
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: emptied a man's store while he stood in it and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: burned another man's two sloops.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: His two sloops?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: Sloops.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Sloop ships?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Some kind of ship.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Small ships.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: They took cattle, horses, carriages, bedding, and furniture. They took people.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Long after the war, a man named Pompey Prowl remembered
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: that night. He said ice was so strong that, quote,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the Americans come over and steal colored people and sell
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: them for slaves.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, sweet God. Never good.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: Got to make a buck, right?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Never good.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: At all costs.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: Wait, the first part of that is ice was so strong?
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they could just run.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: Across the land. Their funding was in the homeland security bills.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: You're thinking, yeah, I get the... In today's environment, I
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: get the mix-ups.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: I was just trying to parse what was being claimed
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: about the climate.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: This is.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: Imagine a time when Tom Homan had teeth. That's what
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: was happening in this area.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: No such time. The colonel's house was looted too, of course. Quote,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: the severe frost at last gave the rebels an easy
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: access to his farm on the ice when they carried
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: off a black man, his cattle, horses, carriages, bedding, and
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: other furniture to a large amount.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Not the bedding!
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Not the bedding, yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: No!
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Magistrates valued the lot at 944 pounds. It also, he said,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: compelled him to move his family out of so exposed
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: a situation. So he's like, well, I got to go.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: He's lost it all, I think, is the.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I got to get out of here.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: Is his full repossession.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I also... Yeah, no.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: Go ahead.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: This house, I believe in, I think it is Billups
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: house where the attempt at a truce conference in the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: beginning of the revolution is held. Like after the British
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: launched the big battle in New York City from Staten
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: Island on September 11th, I think 1776. They're like, all right,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: now you've seen what we can do. Do you want
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: to make nice? And they invite, I think it's Ben
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Franklin and maybe Adams over to Bill's house on Staten Island.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: And they're like, we can make this all disappear. You
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: just like agree that nothing happens and you love the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: king and it can all go back to as it was.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: And that's like, that's the moment when we all, we
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: could have just remained part of great Britain and we
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: chose not to.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: That's so great. They were probably like, this is the
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: most important thing that will ever happen on 9-11.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. This is huge.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: History will remember this. They will never forget what happened
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: in here today.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Phil Pappas remembers this.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So the colonel moves after he comes back from prison.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: He stops sleeping in his house. Every night he walked
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: up from Bentley to his father-in-law's to sleep. And every
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: night somebody sat up to watch over him while he
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: slept because the colonel was a very hard snorer. and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: he was worried he would sleep through another kidnapping attempt.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God. Come on. That's REM I've never experienced.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. You're stressed enough that you're worried that you're
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: going to be kidnapped at any point, but you're still
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: sleeping deeply enough that you need someone to watch you.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: I would be up all night.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: I get 12 hours. Yeah, all night.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, once I'm out, I'm out.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. snoring also the like logic of that makes no
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: sense it's like he's snoring deep loudly enough that he
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: can't hear the he.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: That's probably what he thinks yeah yeah.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: This is this is a different time.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: They didn't know a lot of sleep apnea back.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: You still got a casper mattress he.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: Does Actually, Helix is actually the mattress he probably had.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: Not to jump on your sponsors, Ben, but even back then,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: if you want a mattress, you could be kidnapped.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: Off of- You know what? If he's sleeping that deeply,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: it's probably a Helix.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: California duck slucks, which is quite a bit. The Staten
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: Island duck slucks use promo code Staten Island or promo
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: code Billups.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: It's filled with wooden fences.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Nice and comfy.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: The new Helix horse meat mattress. filled with a whole horse.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: It's one of a kind.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: Listen, why did we shoot it? We don't know, but
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: we stuffed it in some felt. Now you're going to
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: felt a good night's sleep.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: So Staten Islanders are now refusing to serve in the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: loyalist militia and they go further. What's their problem? Some
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: are passing the Americans information about the strength and condition
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: of British troops. A private complained that the residents were
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: spying for the enemy, ambushing patrols and taking every opportunity
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: to shoot at the soldiers of the garrison. You're not
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: on the same side anymore. It's pretty clear.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: It feels like it's turned.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: It feels like when they're actually shooting at you. I'm
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: starting to.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: Understand how Staten Island became a part.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: Of New York.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: The British had had enough, and they evacuated Staten Island
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: on December 3rd, 1783.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: We've all done it.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Residents came down to the shore to watch the fleet go.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: One wrote, quote, we are very boisterous in our demonstrations
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of joy. We clapped our hands. We waved our hats.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: We sprang into the air. And some few who had
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: brought muskets with them fired a foot of joy. A
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: few others in the exuberance of their gladness indulged in
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: gestures which though very expressive, were neither polite nor judicious.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: The old finger.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: One guy from Philly ate horse poop to celebrate and
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 5: everyone felt pretty weird about it. That is so funny
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: to listen to how they wrote about euphoria.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: Demonstrations of boisterous joy.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: There were demonstrations of boisterous joy. We were waving our hats.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: A few gentlemen shot muskets.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Hey, hey! Remember, we have nothing.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: Some people left some sleds on the island, but other
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: than that.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: Some people didn't realize it was the spring and tried
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: to sled to the island. This was great!
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I shot a horse!
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: What do we have?
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 5: Woo!
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows how many Loyalists left with the fleet, but
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: the island came out of the war with more people
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: than when it started. Wow. 2008, 1847, and it was now... 3,835.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: So they gained 1,000 people. And Colonel Christopher Billup left,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and in September 1783, he filed his claim in London.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: His claim?
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: For losses from incursions. One hat.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: Three good night's sleeps.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: My mommy gave me that hat!
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: One yoga mat and blocks. Wow.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: Horse, obviously.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: That was a tough one.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: Unnecessarily shot.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, so losses from the incursions of the enemy, 1,500 pounds.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I thought they would say it was valued.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: At 944 pounds.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: Where is that inflation? Losses of the ice in one night,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: 944 pounds. pounds did you say where is.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: That that places losses of the ice uh of losses
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: of the ice in one night 944 pounds so that's
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: when all the people came after uh-huh when all the
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: people just ran over and stole everything losses to the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: british yeah losses to the british military 1441 pounds For
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: living away from his family for seven years, 1,500 pounds.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: That was very tough.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: You could have just stopped. That was a tough time.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: For the forced sale of his land, 4,752 pounds. To
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: prove it all, he brings deeds going all the way
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: back to 1687. He's got orders from three generals about
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: him having to stay there. And an American newspaper reporting
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: on his spirited conduct in the only battle he was in.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: So that's his record.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Two generals swear for him. His claim for loss of
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: property entered in the commissioner's ledger is 5,171 pounds and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: 10 shillings.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: That's like the rest of your life, right? You're set.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: That's a nice chunk.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Well, then they just give him 400 pounds.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: And they offer him. 80 pounds a year, I guess,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: in a pension or whatever.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: The British are not looking good in this.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: No, they're not.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: Maybe the revolution was a good idea.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: For the first time ever, the British are coming out
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: a little scared. That is crazy. All that, they're like,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: we'll give you 490 a year. That's terrible. That's a
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: bad deal.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: Almost avert the entire thing.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: I gave my life up for what you were doing. Yeah. Anyway,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: get out.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: One sentence was added to the decision. Quote, at the time,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: we think it is necessary to say that on his
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: going to Nova Scotia, we mean the said allowance shall cease.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: So he goes to Nova Scotia, the 80 pounds is
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: over because they know his plan is to move to
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Nova Scotia. And when he does, he gets no more money.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: He does move?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of crisscrossing. It's like, why
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: go to London from Staten Island just to ping pong
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: right back again?
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: That's how you don't make small talk with the decision makers. No,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: Scotia's pretty nice. They're like, got it.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: I hate flying to the East Coast. I can't imagine.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: It's your life.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: My life's been pretty much three boat rides. That's been
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: pretty much it.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: And a couple months in New Jersey.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Billup does very well in Nova Scotia. He sat in
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: the first New Brunswick Assembly and then on the province's
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: council by appointment of the king. And he died at St.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: John in 1827, age 90, worth at least $ 75, 000.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of money.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: That's a real.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: 92. Are those Canadian dollars?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, there's a difference.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Never mind, so.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: It's $ 7.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: He was a bummer.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: Living to 90 with all that.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: That's really impressive. 90 and those, that's crazy.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: Those are solid stats.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: His headstone says that his uncompromising loyalty.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: His headstone at the end says, Turn over for more.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: Second episode to follow.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: His headstone says that his uncompromising loyalty during the American
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: Rebellion obliged him at the termination of that contest to abandon,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: without compensation, his hereditary property on Staten Island.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: That's what you're saying about book titles.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: The headstone is still just like bitter.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: It's a bitter headstone. Also, you're like, wait, what?
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: He was a traitor.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Staten Island was under occupation for seven years and five months,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: longer than any community in America during the Revolution.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: Wow. That is crazy.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but at what point do they start calling it
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: an occupation?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: I know, right? Yeah, like three years in. All right, wait,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: fuck this. No, no, no.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: You know what? This is bad for me.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: All right, wait a minute. Wow, that is so– you.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: Know, that's what's so funny about this sort of stuff,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: at least for me, is I never think about these little–
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 5: wrinkles of how difficult this was to actually get done
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: like i feel like it's just like yeah one day
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: it was done and then instead you're like no no
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: no staten island.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: What a traitorous island well and they had like obviously
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: it was the right position they were just like yeah
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: we have access to the british empire the rocking the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: boat is going to mean there's going to be guys
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: on sleds coming over and kidnapping like.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: Let's just like a mini hormuz.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly Well, it's almost like medieval or before. You just
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: think all of a sudden the river's frozen, and then
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: all these people are just running across the ground. Sledding!
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: Sledding!
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: It was actually the invention of the ice luge.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it was the bomb sledders.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Sources, Philip Pappas, that ever-loyal island, Staten Island in the
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: American Revolution. Charles Anthon. Anthon? Who dropped the Y off there?
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: Dave Anthony, so he's obviously taking issue with that.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: It's personal now. Completely personal. The Y is the whole thing!
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Interview notebooks, Staten Island. History of Richmond County. Richard Bales.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: History of Richmond County. J.J. Clute, Annals of Staten Island,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: and William Davis, The Conference or Billup House, Staten Island,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: New York.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: Wow. That was great. That's wild.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: Now, you didn't really know any of that, which also
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: surprises me.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: I did not. I didn't know anything about the Billup story.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: I knew about Staten Island's preferences during the American Revolution. Yeah.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: But Billup is really an amazing– As they say in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: story terms, he's a great donkey.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he really is. He really is.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: Um well uh ben thank you so much for joining
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: us i mean this was great.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah this was a blast thank you guys so so.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: Just remind remind everyone again where they can go.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: If if we've wet the palette yeah if you're just
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: like what i need is more staten island stories if
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: you want to hear this happen in 1989 to 1993
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: and and uh think about it as a parable for
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: what's going on in the country now then you should
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: come listen to the staten island problem on revisionist history.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: I mean all i was thinking reading this is like
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: oh so you you supported a king like yeah sort
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: of thing and then uh then you cut shit all
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: over yeah and now you're mad and how does it
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: huh interesting how did that how did that go over
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: time interesting yeah how'd that go.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: In the long run yeah yeah uh well thank you
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: ben and uh and yeah enjoy what ben does and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: you You've been listeners.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Enjoy what we do.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: This was great. Thank you guys. This was, this was really,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: really fun.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: Part one, dishonest conversations.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: Chapter one, a shooting lesson.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: Forty minutes outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, deep in the
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: piney woods, there is an outdoor shooting range. Nothing fancy.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: A winding gravel driveway. A little shed where you sign in.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: A series of long shooting alleys hollowed out of the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: side of a hill. A man named Greg Wallace drove
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: me there one day in his SUV. A big bag
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: of guns and equipment in the back. Wallace is a
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: law professor and a competitive shooter. Gray hair. Thoughtful.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: Friendly.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: We set up cardboard targets in the shape of a
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: man's head and torso and put on ear protection.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 6: All right, we're going to start off with this one
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: right here. This is a, it's a custom built.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: AR-15.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: It has the adjustable stock. It has a 14 and
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: a half inch barrel.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: He handed me the gun. It was much smaller than
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: I thought it would be and much heavier. A solid
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: block of metal.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: You want to shoot it?
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: I will.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: Let's get you comfortable on this here. So see if
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 6: that works. Now what you need to do is to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: hold it up here.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: He adjusted the rifle so it fit snugly against my shoulder.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: And then you need to lean your head over a
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 6: little bit where you can see with your, you keep
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 6: looking with your right eye. You want to see that
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: you want to find the red dot in there.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, I see the red dot.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: You see it?
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: I want you to bring your left foot forward. Get
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 6: in that kind of boxing stance.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 6: All right. Bend forward just a little bit. All right. Now,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: I'm going to take it off of safety. Now, once
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 6: you touch that trigger, once the safety goes off, it
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 6: will fire.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: Okay? I fired once and then twice. I missed the
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: target badly. Wallace stepped in and made some adjustments. My
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: feet were in the wrong place. I had taken my
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: eye off the target. I hadn't been prepared for the
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: way the rifle moved after I pulled the trigger. Then
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: I fired again. Much better. Wallace gestured towards the cardboard
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: cutout of a human torso at the end of the range,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: now with a neat bullet hole to the chest. He
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: seemed pleased with my progress. He told me, I would
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: have put him down. Guns are the great distinctive feature
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: of American life. No other country has such a wide
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: variety of firearms owned by such an enormous share of
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: its population. For generations, Americans have struggled to make sense
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: of this fact. If you've ever seen a bumper sticker
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: on a gun enthusiast's car saying something like, guns don't
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: kill people, people do, you'll have a sense of what
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: the argument is about. Are guns the cause of America's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: ills or the symptom? In this book, we will come
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: to a consideration of those questions in due course. But
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: in this, the first section of The American Way of Killing,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: I want to focus on how dishonest this argument has become.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: By dishonest, I don't mean that one or both sides
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: in the fight over guns are deliberately lying. Dishonesty comes
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: in many more subtle flavors than that. A conversation that
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: starts with the best of intentions can become dishonest for
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: any number of reasons. When either side pretends that something
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: is consequential when it is not. When either side avoids
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: the right conclusion because it is too difficult. Or when
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: either side blinds itself to the truth. through laziness or indifference.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: The American conversation about guns is rife with these kinds
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: of dishonesties.